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Berlin House of One: The first church-mosque-synagogue?

21 June 2014Last updated at 23:01 GMT

By Stephen EvansBBC News, Berlin

Berlin
thinks it is making religious history as Muslims, Jews and Christians
join hands to build a place where they can all worship. The House of
One, as it is being called, will be a synagogue, a church and a mosque
under one roof.

An architecture competition has been held and the winner
chosen. The striking design is for a brick building with a tall, square
central tower. Off the courtyard below will be the houses of worship
for the three faiths - the synagogue, the church and the mosque. It is
to occupy a prominent site - Petriplatz - in the heart of Berlin.

The location is highly significant, according to one of the
three religious leaders involved, Rabbi Tovia Ben Chorin. "From my
Jewish point of view the city where Jewish suffering was planned is now
the city where a centre is being built by the three monotheistic
religions which shaped European culture," he told the BBC.
Can they get on? "We can. That there are people within each
group who can't is our problem but you have to start somewhere and
that's what we are doing."

The imam involved, Kadir Sanci, sees the House of One as "a
sign, a signal to the world that the great majority of Muslims are
peaceful and not violent". It's also, he says, a place where different
cultures can learn from each other.
Each of the three areas in the House will be the same size, but of a different shape, architect Wilfried Kuehn points out.

"Each of the singular spaces is designed according to the
religious needs, the particularities of each faith," he says. "There are
for instance two levels in the mosque and the synagogue but there's
only one level in the church. There will be an organ in the church.
There are places to wash feet in the mosque."
He and his team of architects researched designs for the
three types of worshipping place and found more similarities than
expected.

Find out more

You can hear Stephen Evans's radio report on the House of One on the Sunday programme at 07:10 BST on 22 June on BBC Radio 4, or catch up later on the BBC iPlayer

"What's interesting is that when
you go back a long time, they share a lot of architectural typologies.
They are not so different," Kuehn says. "It's not necessary for instance
for a mosque to have a minaret - it's only a possibility and not a
necessity. And a church doesn't need a tower. This is about going
back to the origins when these three faiths were close and shared a lot
architecturally".

In the past, different faiths have used the same buildings
but not usually at the same period. Mosques in southern Spain became
cathedrals after the Christian conquest. In Turkey, churches became
mosques. In Britain old Welsh chapels have sometimes become mosques as
areas change - and Brick Lane mosque in the East End of London started
as a church in the 18th Century, later became a synagogue before turning
to Islam, and has now become a place of worship for the newly arrived
Muslim community.
But that's different from the three faiths worshipping as neighbours under one roof.

The idea came from the Christian side of the triangle.
Pastor Gregor Hohberg, a Protestant parish priest, says it
will be built where the first church in Berlin, dating back to the 12th
Century, was once situated. St Petri's Church was badly damaged at the
end of World War Two as the Red Army liberated Berlin. What remained
was destroyed in the period after the war by the East German
authorities.
Then, six years ago, archaeologists uncovered remains from an
ancient graveyard and it was decided that something should be done to
resurrect a community and its place of worship. The project expanded
and changed from a single-faith building to the present three-faith
plan. Money is now being raised to turn the architects' plans into
bricks and mortar.

St Peter's Church in 1850, and graves being excavated in 2008

Each faith will keep its distinctive ways within its own areas, Pastor Hohberg says.
"Under one roof: one synagogue, one mosque, one church. We
want to use these rooms for our own traditions and prayers. And
together we want to use the room in the middle for dialogue and
discussion and also for people without faith.
"Berlin is a city where people come together from all over the world and we want to give a good example of togetherness."
It was not always the Berlin way.

Vatican partners with Islamic museum for unique exhibition

For the first time ever, the Vatican is staging an unusual exhibition in
the Emirate of Shajah. The show is seen as a sign of openness and
cooperation between religions.

Ulrike al-Khamis has outdone herself. In a project that began six years
ago, the art historian from Germany was tasked with bringing the
extensive collections of the Emir of Sharjah into shape when the Sharjah
Museum of Islamic Civilization was renovated and re-opened. The
exhibition she is now presenting in a sparkling domed building almost
the size of a soccer field has exceeded expectations.

"It is the first collaboration of the Vatican with an Arab country,"
said al-Khamis. Indeed, the exhibition is one-of-a-kind - not only
because it presents excellent artworks but also because it furthers
dialogue between Christians and Muslims.

A mashup of Western arts, Islam and Buddhism

On display: a Chinese vase from the early 18th century bearing an Arabic inscription

The artworks on show from the Ethnological Museum of the
Vatican stem from the 12th to the 19th century, but also include
valuable objects from everyday life in the Arab world. Vases and
bracelets, seals and armor, tapestries and precious daggers are on
display. All the works come from the Islamic region between Morocco and
Sudan all the way to Western China, but are now owned by the Vatican.

Many of the objects embody the dialogue between the Muslim and Western
worlds. There's a dime-sized Koran produced in a print shop in Glasgow,
and yellow mugs from Western China that bear an Arabic inscription
surrounded by lotus flowers, which are a Buddhist symbol.

"We had only one year to prepare this show," said Ulrike al-Khamis. When
the German art expert began advising in Sharjah, one of the emirates of
the United Arab Emirates, she did not know what she was getting herself
into.

"I traveled to Rome with my colleagues. We, the experts from Sharjah,
and some Christian art historians searched the chambers of the Vatican
together and discovered several pieces that had never been exhibited
before," she recalled.

The result is a unique show in Sharjah that presents a comprehensive look at Islam.

"So that you may know each other" is the fitting title of the exhibition

Presents for the Pope

Most of the objects now on show had arrived in the Vatican in 1925 when
Pope Pius XI hosted a kind of international cultural exhibition
comprised of gifts presented to him from private donors and missionaries
stationed all around the world. There were artworks by Australian
aborigines as well as pieces from Latin America, Asia and Polynesia.
From the Islamic world, there were swords and seals, jewelry and
garments. It was a truly global exhibition.

Ulrike al-Khamis is pictured with the Emir of Sharjah, Sultan
al-Qasimi (center), and the director of the Ethnological Museum in the
Vatican, Father Nicola Mapelli (left)

Around 100,000 works of art were collected in Rome for the
show, but needed a permanent location after that. In 1926, the Pope
established a new museum to keep the works, the Ethnological Museum,
which was housed in the Lateran Palace. Half a century later, the museum
was relocated to its present site in the Vatican.

However, it has been shut down several times since then and never fully
reopened. The museum's current director, Father Nicola Mapelli, has
sought to make the collection's works available via partnerships with
other cultural institutions - such as the Museum of Islamic Civilization
in Sharjah.

The art of diplomacy
In the case of Sharjah, the Vatican's museum found a like-minded
partner. The small emirate is led by Sultan al-Qasimi, an intellectual
interested in culture who's written a number of books himself and is
interested in furthering intercultural dialogue. More than 20 years ago,
al-Qasimi launched the most important biennial for contemporary art in
the Arab world, the Sharjah Biennial, and more than 40 museums have been
established under his reign.

These boots from Senegal are included in the exhibition

The fact that Rome is lending its works for the first time is
an act of diplomacy in line with Pope Francis's current policies. While
Pope Benedict XVI had distanced himself from other religions, his
successor is pursuing a different policy. In October last year, during a
speech for the sponsors of the Ethnological Museum, Pope Francis
pointed out the unifying role of culture in religious, social and moral
matters.
In the exhibition catalog, the Vatican writes that it will treat the
Islamic objects "with the same amount of respect as the Leonardos,
Raffaels and Michaelangelos." Fittingly, the title of the exhibition is
"So that you may know each other." which is actually a verse from the
Koran in response to the question of why people are so different.
Mutual understanding between Christians and Muslims is exactly what the
exhibition aims at. Taking history into account, dialogue between the
religious groups cannot be taken for granted.

Francis carrying on Rick Warren’s work with Chrislam

“And
I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people,
that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her
plagues.”Revelation 18:4

Pope Francis can best be described as a man on a mission. That
mission seems to be the unification of the Vatican’s Roman Catholic
system with Islam. This demonic hybrid is what is more commonly known as
Chrislam. Francis is building on the already impressive body of work in
this field started by apostate Emergent Church preacher Rick Warren.

German website DW reports that for the first time ever, the Vatican is staging an unusual exhibition in the Emirate of Shajah. The show is seen as a sign of openness and cooperation between religions.“It is the first collaboration of the Vatican with an Arab country,” said al-Khamis. Indeed, the exhibition is one-of-a-kind – not only because it presents excellent artworks but also because it furthers dialogue between Christians and Muslims.

CLICK IMAGE FOR CHRISLAM UPDATES FROM AROUND THE WORLD

The fact that Rome is lending its works for the first time is an act of diplomacy in line with Pope Francis’s current policies.While
Pope Benedict XVI had distanced himself from other religions, his
successor is pursuing a different policy. In October last year, during a
speech for the sponsors of the Ethnological Museum, Pope Francis pointed out the unifying role of culture in religious, social and moral matters.

In the exhibition catalog, the Vatican writes
that it will treat the Islamic objects “with the same amount of respect
as the Leonardos, Raffaels and Michaelangelos.” Fittingly, the title of the exhibition is “So that you may know each other.” which is actually a verse from the Koran
in response to the question of why people are so different. Mutual
understanding between Christians and Muslims is exactly what the
exhibition aims at.